Flour dresser
mechanical device used in grain mills for bolting
A flour dresser is a mechanical device used in grain mills for bolting or flour extraction, which is the process of separating the finished flour from the other grain components by sifting following milling. The milling of grain into flour has been termed the oldest continuously-conducted industry in the world. Flour dressers appear in water-powered mills in the United Kingdom dating to the 17th century, and their use continued into the 20th century in the UK and other countries as the grain-milling industry converted from water power to steam and other forms of power to drive mill machinery.
Processing milled grain
Grain to be processed into flour is first ground, typically in one or more steps, then the bran is separated from the flour produced by grinding the grain. The flour produced from the grain is further separated by size through sifting (or bolting). A centrifugal reel or flour dresser is used to perform this separation, producing the finished flour and a number of byproducts, such as bran and dust. A centrifugal reel is a cylinder around which a cloth filter is stretched. Inside of the cloth-covered cylinder are beaters which stir and toss the ground grain against the cloth. A brush moving across the outside of the cylinder removes the flour and keeps the cloth functioning. A flour dresser is constructed similarly to the centrifugal reel, but lacks the beaters.
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This entry incorporates text from “Flour dresser” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.